ITALY vs USA - FOOD! [SUB ITA]
Hi guys it's Debbie! As I've lived inItaly nearly my whole life and I've been
living in the United States for aroundseven months now, today I would like to
start a series of new videos in which Ispeak about different topics such as
driving, going to the cinema, food, theeducation system... And I would like to
explain how these things work in my homecountry and how they are here in the
United States. Also I was originally bornin England from a British mum so half of
my culture and tastes are influenced bythe British culture, so if the topic
allows it I would also like to introducemy perspective as an English person. Also
last thing: with these videos I don'tmean to offend anyone or judge a culture,
just as a foreigner living in adifferent country I thought I could
offer my perspective and maybe raise adiscussion about certain topics. Today I
would like to begin with a big conceptboth for Italy and the United States:
food. The first difference that canimmediately be pointed out between the
two countries is the access to food andthe different relationship the two
countries have towards it. In America youhave access to any type of food nearly
24/7: wherever you go at whatever timethere will be restaurants offering cheap
food, even all night long. Or you can justpull up an app on your phone and deliver
it straight to your door. Let's take forexample the town right next to the one
in which I'm staying now and the one inwhich I carry out most of my daily
activities. It has 15,000 inhabitants soa small to medium town and let's see what
it has to offer. Chili's, Burger King,Wendy's, McDonald's, Blaze Pizza,
Applebee's, Panda Express, two DunkinDonuts and then many other generic
restaurants which wouldn't necessarilybe included in the fast-food sector but
which just show how many choices aperson could have. In Italy there is not
this immediate access to food, especiallyfast food. The country is depicted as
very proud of its food but on a refinedlevel: Italians carry pride in offering
and eating very high quality food. Herewe are mostly speaking of the concept of
eating out,but even when preparing food most
supermarkets aren't open until very lateat night, in the smaller towns they even
close for a lunch break for a couple ofhours. Italians in general have very high
standards when it comes to eating andthey do not view food as something fast,
a product to consume just like any other.But we'll get back to that later on. Most
towns in Italy do not have fast foodchains, they just have local pizzerias or
restaurants which open around6:00 p.m. and closed around midnight,
some even earlier during the week. Alsosometimes they will be open for a couple
of hours at lunch time. There quite a fewkebab shops, chip shops in the larger
cities and in the more touristy areasthere is a wider choice to accommodate
different tastes and restaurants mightbe open all day long. There are many
small family-run places to eat andespecially in the south you can see many
street food vendors, but on the contraryof what they appear to
offer, which appears as this very heartycalorie loaded food, in reality most of
their products are very very healthy. Butfor example in the city where I lived
(Verona) there were two McDonald's and oneBurger King serving a population of
300,000 people, and the Burger King onlyopened a few years ago. Then we have
another couple of McDonald's and BurgerKing serving the surrounding area which
includes a 700,000 people and that's it.No Dunkin Donuts, no Papa John's, no
Five Guys, no Taco Bell,no Chipotle, no Wendy's, Pizza Hut, Popeyes...
All of these shops don't even exist inall of Italy. I think there might be one
Starbucks in Rome and I'm not even sureabout that. You just get kebab shops,
there is one subway in Verona, there arehamburger restaurant, sandwich shops but
unless you live in the centre of thecity or in general in a pretty inhabited
area, you'll have to pick up the car anddrive for a while, because by the way
Uber doesn't exist.Most of the fast-food options are
ice-cream shops, small cafes so what wewould usually call a "bar". They usually
serve small pastries, sandwiches, coffee,drinks. There are many many pizzerias
(even more than necessary) but they'reusually dine-ins where you will pay a
full regular restaurant price and youwill have to pay more for drinks, for
the cover service. There are pizza takeawayplaces but they're still considered more
of a treat rather than something fast totake away. So if you're hungry at an
inconvenient time or an inconvenientlocation, too bad for you. And I lived in
the north of Italy, a very industrialisedarea. In the south of Italy the situation
is even more different: you can gothrough town after town without seeing
one fast food shop. There will be oldfamily style run restaurants. In Italy
they aren't even that many apps to orderonline. You can call a pizzeria and speak
with somebody and order delivery, butthere's no Seamless,
no Postmates. Around two years ago JustEat was introduced and in the town where
Simone (my boyfriend) lived whichhas over 30.000
inhabitants, one restaurant wasavailable on the app. So in general the
first difference between Italy and theUnited States when speaking about food
is the relationship people have towardsit. In America unless you live on in the
wilderness on the border with Canada, youcan always find somewhere to eat, to grab
a fast bite. And as a matter of fact foodis seen as a fast, an easy thing. In Italy
instead, eating food bought from a restaurantis seen more as a treat. Most families
don't often order food at home and ifthey do it's never pasta, never meat and
never sandwiches. It will usually bepizzas from an actual pizzeria and it
will usually be on the weekend or when they have friends over or
it's a birthday, a cause for celebrationlet's say. So Italians, starting from a very
young age, don't have the concept ofeating out often. People do eat at
fast-food restaurants but for examplefor teenagers, which are the biggest
clients of these places, it's more duringthe weekend because they're in the city
or they're on a school trip, orthey're meeting up with a friend, they
went shopping and they couldn't affordanything else. If I were now to call my
ten year old brother back in Italy andtell him we're about to all go out to
eat together, he'd probably ask me why?Why, what are we celebrating?
When in America many people eat out aspart of their regular meal plan. I think
this distinction depends on thedifference on the meal structure.
In Italy there are nearly rulessurrounding what you eat, how you eat
and when you eat. And when it comes tomealtime everything else must stop and
everybody (from toddlers to grandparents)must interrupt the daily activities and
come to the table and eat together,dedicate that time, their time to food. So
already as a child a meal is seen as aritual, a part of the day and usually
something your family made rather thansomething delivered to your door. It's
not something fast.There are approximately three standard
times to eat and it goes more or lesslike this: 6:00 to 9:00 in the morning
for breakfast, 12:00 to 2:00 for lunchand 6:30 to 8:30 in the evening for
dinner. And meals are a big thing, itmeans sitting down all together at a
completely well laid table, kidsand adults eat all together. And the food
will be pasta or rice, meat or fish,vegetables, mozzarella, soup, bread. You
will never be invited over to a friend'shouse and the offered hummus, chicken
teriyaki, udon noodle soup. You willfind wonderful and delicious variants of
what you know, but hardly ever it will besomething completely exotic and uncommon.
In America instead people are more flexibleabout this: pita bread and avocado,
dinner time might be at 5:00 and the next dayat 8:00. The children might eat earlier
than the parents later, the family mightskip completely a meal and eat another
larger one after, they might eat one bigmeal in a day or ten smaller snacks.
That's why restaurants in the UnitedStates are more flexible, they're open at
different times. If this were to happenin Italy outside of the standard times
restaurants would probably be empty.Let's talk a bit about the food in
itself.First things first: ninety percent of the
food in America which is labeled as "trueItalian" is not. It is an Americanised
version of the food. There is nothingwrong with this, this happens with every
country, food is adapted to the tastes ofpaying customers. But as we are now
speaking of American food and Italianfood, I thought it'd been necessary to
point out that many foods which youbelieve are Italian just aren't. We don't
usually eat spaghetti with meatballs (orif we do it's in a completely different
manner),we don't eat garlic bread, we certainly
never ate alfredo sauce, chicken withpasta as a side. There's nothing wrong
with this, it's just a completemisconception about what we actually eat
in Italy. And it is an important conceptfor all of this video.
In reality Italian cuisine is verysimple, it's very basic, it doesn't
contain many adventurous sauces, it doesn'tcontain too much sugar or salt. As I was
saying before, pasta or rice, meat or fish.vegetables, mozzarella, bread, soup and so on.
There is a huge choice within thesebasic pieces, there are some interesting
local traditions all over thecountry, but at the same time there are
some big staples everybody is familiarwith and which everybody eats wherever
you go in Italy: carbonara is carbonara, ragù is ragù wherever you go.
I have noticed that the south of Italy has somevery particular dishes and the people
are famous for being more adventurouswith food, there is some very
experimental street food going on downin the south. But there is not that huge
variety and fusion of different types offood as there
in America. This is due to the fact thatAmerica is a melting pot of cultures and
everybody has bought a taste of theirown country. You can find anything from
popular Mexican, Thai and Japanese tomore uncommon cuisines such as Brazilian,
Syrian, Sudanese... you name it. Obviouslyfor the purposes of the video I am
highlighting the most notable featuresof both cuisines and what you would
notice visiting the country, butdefinitely both in American homemade
dishes and brought dishes you can noticethe influence of different cultures
bought from immigrants over the decadesand centuries. In Italy the waves of
immigration have been intense over theyears, Italy is home to many different
cultures and everybody has brought apart of their home country with them.
When speaking of food I have seen (andeaten) at many middle eastern
restaurants, for example the kebab shops,there are many halal stores, then the
north of Italy has many dishes which aremore similar to the German or Austrian
cuisine (for example potatoes andspeck) and the south of Italy is more
similar to North African food, forexample cous cous. But generally speaking
Italian food has not been changed thatmuch.
Now let's talk a little about junk food-Unfortunately one of the stereotypes I
had heard about America, and that is ofshops offering a wide variety of junk
food is true. But there is also a silverlining to this, so hear me out. I've been
to a variety of supermarkets in theUnited States and I have found things
such as... corn dogs with blueberry batter,spray cheese,
spray butter, pop-tarts and I've heard there issuch thing as deep-fried butter. If you
walk down the drinks aisle you will finddozens and dozens and dozens of
different types of fizzy drinks, anyflavour of Fanta, ten types of coke, 7up,
Dr. pepper, Mountain Dew,Pepsi, Sprite. The seasoning aisle: classic
ranch, peppercorn ranch, homestyle ranch,buttermilk ranch, bacon ranch, three
cheese ranch, spicy ranch... The same goesfor crisps, frozen pizzas, cookies.. There
is anything possible and for everythingthere are ten different variations,
different flavours. In Italy nosupermarket stocks that many junk food
options. A quick note to the side, inAmerica for example water is served for
free at restaurants and is neverconsidered the main drink.
Waiters willserve water at the table and then will
insist on asking what would you like todrink. And when drinking water people
will often choose different types, suchas blueberry water, pomegranate water. In
Italy people just don't have that manyoptions, and I don't think they even want
them. You either drink regular water, tea(of three types peach, lemon or green tea),
regular Diet Coke, same for Pepsi, regularFanta, regular Sprite, juices and
that's about it. Even if you go to storesin Italy which are similar to these American
ones which offer these options, for example there is one
discount shop called Lidl which in myopinion is quite close to Walmart (in a
smaller size), the array of junk food willstill be limited to discount fake Coca
Cola, cookies, crisps and a few differentfrozen pizzas. Overeating and indulging
in Italy can never become extremebecause society there considers
indulging and overeating eatingchocolate ice cream, eating a couple more
cookies, Mozzarella sticks, cheese puffs.There is just not the offer of anything
more "extreme". But the big difference withAmerica is that there aren't any shops
like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, whichare huge chains which offer organic and
healthy food. There is one chain in Italywhich is NaturaSì, but it isn't
available everywhere and it isridiculously expensive. I think that
these supermarkets aren't so widespreadback in Italy because you can pick the
healthy and organic options at regularsupermarkets. So all in all is Italy
really this super, thehealthiest place on earth where people
are stick-thin and just eat mozzarellaand organic tomatoes? And is America a
hell made of deep-fried pizzas? NO! Forexample I gained most of my weight in
Italy and I lost most of it in America,it just depends on the attitude of the
person. And if you really do want to eatjunk food, wherever you are the world you
will find it. And many households inAmerica
choose a completely healthy lifestyle,probably more than other families for
example in Italy. Not everything is asbad as stereotypes want it to appear.
On the contrary, because of thisvaried offer you can easily pick an
interesting and healthy lifestyle. But Imust say that the temptation in America
is much stronger and the healthy foodto unhealthy food offer in the two
countries is completely different. And Isometimes feel that in America there is
no in-between.You're either buying the healthy super
expensive super foods, or you're forcedto buy your groceries at the discount
shop which obviously offers unhealthyoptions. I feel that instead in Italy
it's more in between, I feel thateverybody can access all the stores
which offer healthy options at areasonable price. And even if you do
indulge and overeat, it will never be thisridiculous amount of fats and sugar. I
also think that in Italy society tendsto be very (sometimes too much) strict
about food and about the rules itimposes on it. People will turn their
noses at even the idea of a completelyodd and different food, or they will
refuse to eat at different times of theday. I hope I managed to unravel
most of my thoughts about this topic. Letme know what you think about it and also
as all of you come from differentcountries, I would love to hear more
stories about food in your country, sofeel free to leave a comment down below.
Thank you for watching, if you want tosee more videos make sure to subscribe
and I'll see you soon, bye!
Which do you prefer? My Links ⬇ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sannadebbie/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/sannadebbie Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/debbie_sanna/ Tumblr - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/debbiesanna SUBSCRIBE - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8j6... ITALY vs USA - DRIVING! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfWO1vCSPko For business enquiries debbiesanna@mail.com Scrivetemi anche in italiano!